BRIEFS

Rip It Up, Issue 45, 1 April 1981, Page 21

BRIEFS

Emmylou Harris, Evangeline (Warners) Harris comes back out of the straight country field she’s been working in recent albums. The highlight is an oddity, a bubbling working of ‘Mister Sandman’ with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt that avoids the easy pitfalls of camping it up. For the rest it’s solid music which just misses the top flight because of the strangely emotionless voice Harris sings in. PG The Tourists, Luminous Basement (RCA) The Tourists arrived around the same time as the Records, and in spite of predictable adoration from such quarters as Dark Star magazine, they were confidently expected to slither down the same tube as Meal Ticket, Kursaal Flyers et al. But the band surprised everyone by putting three singles in the English Top 30 within 18 months. Now with RCA, this third album keeps the standard right up, the formula varying little from the thrusting flangerz filled pop-rock of the first two things getting a little more languid when Annie Lennox takes lead vocal. An aberration too on the second side when group democracy lets Dave Stewart contribute a 60s R&B remake pinching the same eternal bass riff borrowed by the Swingers for'Counting The Beat’. RC Hazel O'Connor, Breaking Glass (A&M) The soundtrack to the reportedly dreadful Breaking Glass film, the title ostensibly stolen from Bowie. Hazel O'Connor writes droning wasted ‘punk’ songs that are bereft of tune or any true feeling. A real cinema punk whose only redeeming feature, if you can call it that, is that she sounds a little like Lene Lovich. Small mercies. GK Various Artists, Time Square Soundtrack (RSO) Wot? Talking Heads, the Ruts, XTC, the Ramones, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and the Cure on Robert Stigwood vinyl? Those and many more of gradually lessening quality (Robin Johnson and Robin Gibb are thankfully the only real dreck) make up the double album soundtrack for this reportedly dire movie which might, I suppose, at best, bring some of the above to the attention of those hitherto wholly unaware of their existence. RC

Hank Williams Jnr, Rowdy (Elektra) The background’s sure as hell deep country. Being Hank Williams’ son is as near to country royalty as you’ll get this side of the Carter family. Young Hank also almost killed himself in a mountain fall, a few years ago, when .he scraped most of his face off. The trouble is the boy just doesn’t have that lonesome coyote howl that made his Dad so spinechilling. He makes the right moves, but the feelings don stick. PG Toto, 'Turn Back'(CßS) Just as I’m loving the work some of these guys have ; recently | done with Aretha Franklin they go and put out this. .No better than their previous two turkeys, Turn Back is simply more evidence’ that' sessionmen • should never be allowed to call the shots. Pompous and pointless. PT The Powder Blues, Uncut (RCA) '' Aside from a tightish rhythm section and a taste for 19405-style]~swing rhythms this eightpiece Canadian blues-rock band lacks originality or interest. they get by, but they are weak on vocals and their original songs are derivative of early 70s boogie bands, which, in turn, were pretty derivative. They do a couple of blues (Albert King’s ‘Personal Manager', the oft-recorded 'Just a Little 1 Bit’), but fail to raise the temperature. 1 KW Jack Green, Humanesque (RCA) Ex Pretty Things and T.Rex guitarist Jack Green doesn’t disgrace himself on Humanesque, an album of unassuming, moderately talented, dominated craftwork. The emphasis is on conservatism and accessibility with the occasional piece of classiness sneaking in. LikeabIeTBwJIBMBBBIBtMGK’ John Mayall, Roadshow Blues (DJM)JKtBB This album his 35th shows .Mayall getting back to the roots (as they say). He has a tight little band with him (a trimmed-down version of the group that made the nondescript No More Interviews) and the sound is reminiscent of the bounce of the period around the Blues from Laurel t Canyon album. This is one of Mayall’s better recent albums, with an added bonus of a couple of live tracks where things really cook, notably on Jimmy Reed's ‘Baby, l What You Want Me To Do’. KW Suzi l Quatro, Rock j Hard (Dreamland Records) Years ago I [would | have bet . hard cash that Ms Quatro wouldn’t have had a plugged nickel’s chance of seeing the eighties with | her cutesy tame leatherette rock'n’roll. But here she is, Mike Chapman produced, and slick’ too; soundl ing as raucous and aimless as ever. Innocence can no longer, save her. GK Various Artists, Up The Academy (Capitol) Movie soundtrack for ' a Mad Magazine production. The ones you know are predictably the, standouts Jonathan Richman's 'Roadrunner’, Pat Benatar’s ‘We Live] For Love' and Blondie’s ’X-Offender’. The rest is B division American rock from The Babys, Blow Up, Cheeks and former Montrose singer Sammy Hagar. RC